• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.413-414
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• 2012

Programmable Metallization Cell (PMC) memory, which utilizes electrochemical control of nanoscale quantities of metal in thin films of solid electrolyte, shows great promise as a future solid state memory. The technology utilizes the electrochemical formation and removal of metallic pathways in thin films of solid electrolyte. Key attributes are low voltage and current operation, excellent scalability, and a simple fabrication sequence. In this study, we investigated the nature of thin films formed by photo doping of Ag+ ions into chalcogenide materials for use in solid electrolyte of programmable metallization cell devices. We measured the I-V characteristics by field-effect of the device. The results imply that a Ag-rich phase separates owing to the reaction of Ag with free atoms from chalcogenide materials.

• Polymer Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.175-180
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• 2010

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.12 no.3 s.36
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• pp.235-241
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• 2005

Incorporation of solid electrodes frequently involves plasma-based processing. The effect of plasma can influence the physical characteristics, depending on the magnitude in plasma. The undesired feature of plasma-induced damage should be prevented in characterizing the ultra-thin materials, such as ultra-thin films and organic monolayers. The current work at first proves the applicability of a liquid phase electrode in the electrical/dielectric properties through comparative work using Al and Hg on ultrathin $Al_2O_3$ films deposited through atomic layer deposition at low temperature: Two types of metals such as Aluminum (Al) and mercury (Hg) were used as electrodes in $Al_2O_3$ thin films in order to investigate the effect of electrode preparation on the current-voltage characteristics and impedance features as a function of thickness in $Al_2O_3$ film thickness. The success of Hg in $Al_2O_3$ thin films is applied to the AC and DC characterization of the organic monolayers obtained using the Langmuir-Blodgett method. From the DC current-voltage characteristics, the diode-like response is found to originate from the bulk response of the organic materials, evidenced by the fact and the capacitance is inversely related to the absolute thickness of organic layers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.475-480
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• 2015

Ultrasonic atomic force microscopy (Ultrasonic-AFM) has been used to investigate the elastic property of the ultra-thin coating layer in a thin-film system. The modified Hertzian theory was applied to predict the contact resonance frequency through accurate theoretical analysis of the dynamic characteristics of the cantilever. We coat 200 nm thick Aluminum and Titanium thin films on the substrate using the DC Magnetron sputtering method. The amplitude and phase of the contact resonance frequency of a vibrating cantilever varies in response to the local stiffness constant. Ultrasonic-AFM images were obtained using the variations in the elastic property of the materials. The morphology of the surface was clearly observed in the Ultrasonic-AFM images, but was barely visible in the topography. This research demonstrates that Ultrasonic-AFM is a promising technique for visualizing the distribution of local stiffness in the nano-scale thin coatings.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.282-282
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• 2011

Low power consuming operation of phase-change random access memory (PRAM) can be achieved by confining the switching volume of phase change media into nanometer scale. Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) is one of the best materials for the phase change random access memory (PRAM) because the GST has two stable states, namely, high and low resistance values, which correspond to the amorphous and crystalline phases of GST, respectively. However, achieving the fast operation speed at lower current requires an alternative chalcogenide material to replace the GST and shrinking the dimension of programmable volume. In this paper, we have fabricated nanoscale contact area on Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films with trimming process. The GST material was fabricated by melt quenching method and the GST thin films were deposited with thickness of 100 nm by the electron beam evaporation system. As a result, the reset current can be safely scaled down by reducing the device contact area and we could confirmed the phase-change characteristics by applying voltage pulses.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 1994

The magnetization dynamics was investigated by solving possible origins of overdamped susceptibility observed in ultra-soft magnetic amorphous thin films. The experimental high frequency spectrum and computational spectrum calculated from Gilbert's equation of motion were compared in order to find proper damping factor $\alpha{\approx}20$ and demagnetizing coefficients $D_{x}{\approx}D_{y}{\approx}D_{z}{\approx}0$ for ultra-soft magnetic films. A magnetization vortex mode was, then, proposed to explain the origin of the reversible susceptibility and other anomalies of the ultra-soft magnetic heterogeneous thin films. In this mode it is suggested that there occur, within the nanoscale structural features of the ultra-soft films, incoherent rotational spin motions that are highly damped by the energy transfer from short wavelength spin wave modes and local defect structure mode interactions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.196.1-196.1
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• 2016

TCO(Transparent Conducting Oxide) on flat glass is used in thin-film photovoltaic cell, flat-panel display. Nowadays, Corning(R) Willow Glass(R), known as flexible substrate, has attracted much attention due to its many advantages such as reliable roll-to-roll glass processing, high-quality flexible electronic devices, high temperature process. Also, it can be an alternative to flexible polymer substrates which have their poor stability and degradation of electrical and optical qualities. For application on willow glass, the flexibility, electrical, optical properties can be greatly influenced by the TCO thin film thickness due to the inherent characterization of thin film in nanoscale. It can be expected that while thick TCO layer causes poor transparency, its sheet resistance become low. Also, rarely reports were focusing on the influence of flexible properties by varying TCO thickness on flexible glass. Therefore, it is very important to optimize TCO thickness on flexible Willow glass. In this study, Ti-ZnO thin films, with different thickness varied from 0 nm to 50 nm, were deposited on the flexible willow glass by atomic layer deposition (ALD). The flexible, electrical and optical properties were investigated, respectively. Also, these properties of Ti-doped ZnO thin films were compared with un-doped ZnO thin film. Based on the results, when Ti-ZnO thin films thickness increased, resistivity decreased and then saturated; transmittance decreased. The Figure of Merit (FoM) and flexibility was the highest when Ti-ZnO thickness was 40nm. The flexible, electrical and optical properties of Ti-ZnO thin films were better than ZnO thin film at the same thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.37-37
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• 2008

Hydrogenated nanocrystalline Si (nc-Si:H) thin films were prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The films were deposited with a radio frequency power of 100 W, while substrates were exposed to direct current (DC) biases in the range from 0 to -400 V. The effects of the DC bias on the formation of nanoscale Si crystallites in the films and on their optical characteristics were investigated. The size of the Si crystallites in the films ranges from ~ 1.9 to ~ 4.1 nm. The relative fraction of the crystallites in the films reached up ~ 56.5 % when the DC bias of -400 V was applied. Based on the variation in the structural, chemical, and optical features of the films with DC bias voltages, a model for the formation of nanostructures of the nc-Si:H films prepared by PECVD was suggested. This model can be utilized to understand the evolution in the size and relative fraction of the nanocrystallites as well as the amorphous matrix in the nc-Si:H films.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.147-157
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• 1994

Valence or core electron excitations induced by Synchrotron radiation (SR) irradiation and ensuing chemical reactions can be applied for semiconductor processes i, e, deposition etching and modifications of thin film materials. Unique selectivity can be achieved by this photochemical reactions in deposition and etching. Some materials can be ecvaporated by SR irradiation which can be utilized for low temperature surface cleaning of thin films. Also SR irradiation significantly lowers the reaction temperature and photon activated surface reactions can be utilized for direct writing or projection lithography of electronic materials. This technique is especially effective in making nanoscale feature size with abrupt and well defined interfaces for next generation electronic devices.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.101-106
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• 2009

The disjoining pressure is an important physical property in modeling the small-scale transport phenomena on thin film. It is a very useful definition in characterizing the non-continuum effects that are not negligible in heat and mass transport of the film thinner than submicro-scales. We present the calculated values of disjoining pressure of He, Kr and Xe thin films absorbed on graphite substrate using Molecular Dynamics Simulation (MD). The disjoining pressure is accurately calculated in the resolution of a molecular scale of the film thickness. The characteristics of the pressure are discussed regarding the molecular nature of the fluid system such as molecular diameter and intermolecular interaction parameters. The MD results are also compared with those based on the continuum approximation of the slab-like density profile and the results on other novel gases in the previous study. The discrepancies of the continuum model with MD results are shown in all three configurations and discussed in the view point of molecular features.